


Introductions

by justanothersong



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Development, F/M, Fluff, Healing, Light Angst, Single Incidence of Mild Violence, housekeeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 22:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13397865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: “I need to… I mean, I should...” he started. He was clearly uncomfortable, stumbling over his words, eyes cast down to the tiled floor. When he looked up, his blue eyes were pained. “I want to apologize,” he finally spit out. “For what I did to you.”





	Introductions

You first met the Winter Soldier on a cold night in mid-March. You had just returned to work from a short leave of absence; you had been helping your sister in law with your new niece, a few weeks old now and just home from the NICU. She had come early, and you sister in law (who was more like a sister than an in-law) needed all the help she could get. 

No one had bothered to tell you that Captain Rogers had a houseguest.

Mr. Stark liked to deploy housekeeping staff at night, when most everyone had gone to sleep. Seeing people clean up after them made much of his team feel like they were being waited on and it made them uncomfortable, so it was easiest to work overnights to wash and tidy. Laundry was done during the early morning hours and any noisy endeavors, like vacuuming, were only attended to if the private residential floors were empty.

A preemptive ban on midnight cleaning had been placed on Captain Rogers’ half of the 85th floor, but no one in the housekeeping office had thought to inform you. All in all, it was just a very big mistake.

You had just gotten off the elevator and let yourself into the Captain’s partition, heading for the kitchen to start with any dishes that might be waiting, when you found yourself face to face with the notorious Winter Soldier.

You were terrified. The small caddy of cleaning products you carried dropped from your hand, first from the startle and second from the realization of who he was. Before you could so much as take a breath to speak, you were slammed against the wall and held there, a frigid metal fist closed around your throat and your feet dangling a few inches above the ground. In your panic you felt the mad urge to laugh, glad you had visited the restroom outside of the housekeeping office so many floors below before venturing up; you were certain you would have wet yourself otherwise.

His face was the most terrifying thing you had ever seen in your life. It was completely blank, devoid of any thought or emotion. His eyes were empty, bottomless black pools that drifted down deep and dark into nothingness. You understood immediately why the media called him a monster; the creature standing before you, slowly squeezing the life from your throat, looked almost soulless. 

Shadows swam before your eyes and even the dim lighting of the corridor began to fade away, darkening slowly at the edges and creeping ever inward.

“Bucky?” you heard a familiar, sleepy voice call. Captain Rogers emerged from one of the bedroom doors, hair tousled and clearly roused from sleep, wearing blue striped boxers and a grey t-shirt. When the sleep cleared from his eyes and he realized what was happening, he ran towards you at a sprint.

“Oh my god, Bucky, no!” he cried out, and you felt his strong grip pulling on the Soldier’s mechanical arm, just as the darkness closed over you fully and you knew no more.

You awoke to a vaguely medicinal scent and a steady mechanical beep; you knew even before you opened your eyes that you had been moved to the Tower’s med bay. You had started with the cleaning service three years prior, on the med bay team, only moving up to the private quarters within the last year. You had been proud of that -- proud that they trusted you in their private spaces -- but the scent and sounds of the med bay were permanently etched in your memory.

Opening your eyes, you blinked at the harsh fluorescent lights, realizing the monitors you heard were attached to you: a pulse oximeter on your finger, an automatic blood pressure cuff on your arm, electrodes attached to your chest to watch your heart. Captain Rogers sat nearby, looking about as bad as you felt. He was still in his sleep clothes, watching you with a worried expression on his face.

Your throat burned. You could taste blood and the pain became even worse when you tried to swallow. Even moving your head was painful; you knew you must have some pretty spectacular bruises.

Seeing that you were awake, the Captain’s eyes flicked to yours, his face carrying a broken, doleful expression.

“I am so sorry,” he told you, voice so sad and earnest. “I don’t know what happened, we were supposed to have any services to the floor suspended for the time being.”

You nodded. Someone had apparently left that little tidbit out when you came into work that evening and asked if anything interesting had happened while you were gone.

“Bucky didn’t mean to hurt you,” he went on, and you found yourself startled again, that he could refer to the man by such a familiar tone. As if he was still a man at all.  
The Captain’s eyes dropped to the floor. “He’s just… he’s not himself, not yet. He’ll come back, I know he will, but he just needs some time.”

You felt your heart break for him. You had met the Captain once or twice, a very charming and polite man, but always seeming just a little outside of everyone else. Lonely. You’d been as captivated as the rest of the world, watching the story play out in the news: old friends reunited against every odd, a soldier tortured and warped into something less than human.

The trial had been a circus, but in the end, the man known as the Winter Soldier had been cleared of all charges against him. Not guilty by reason of diminished capacity, they had said.

You sighed, wincing at the way it made your throat ache.

The Captain glanced up to meet your eyes again. “I understand if you want to press charges,” he said quietly. There was that heartbreaking stare again. It seemed the man had perfected the art of puppy-dog eyes.

You tried to speak but you only managed a painful croak, and the Captain stood quickly, receiving a styrofoam cup with a straw from a side counter in the med bay cubicle where you lay, holding it gently to your mouth so you could drink. It hurt, the ice water going down your already raw throat, but it was wet enough to give you leave to speak.

“My brother,” you told him, voice low with a pained rasp. “Back from Iraq… more’n a year. Still gotta wake him… from across the room… with a broom handle.”

The Captain seemed surprised by your response. “So you understand?” he asked quietly.

“No… pressing charges,” you told him, and closed your eyes, leaning back against your pillow. “Just… do your own dishes for a while.”

 

You first met Sergeant Barnes on a blustery October day, in the sub-basement laundry floor of the Tower. Two months prior, you had been promoted to the morning shift supervisor and the job was a lot more difficult than you had thought it would be. The girls who worked laundry tended to giggle more than sort, and gossip more than pay attention to the very specific instructions required for each resident of the Tower’s clothing and linens.

“Peroxide, ladies!” you called out, irritated as you shifted through a pile of broadly-shouldered t-shirts that were stained with various splashes of blood. They had been washed already -- thankfully in cold water -- and you were able to save them before they were thrown into an industrial dryer. 

“If you can’t deal with the sort of messes we see coming in around here, you need to ask for a shift change or transfer to office cleaning,” you continued, aggravated that the whole day’s was schedule had to be reconfigured. “Peroxide on the blood, dish soap on the grease, and for the love of god, shake the dirt and the rubble out before you put it in a washing machine! I’m not writing another repair request because we’re getting too lazy down here, ladies!

“Sorry!” came as a chorus, with a few follow ups of “We’ll remember!”

You sighed and shook your head, turning back to the damp pile of blood-stained shirts. You stretched the first one out over the central row of hand-washing tubs and popped open a new bottle of hydrogen peroxide -- you went through gallons of the stuff -- to start spot treating the mess.

“Excuse me, miss?” a quiet voice interrupted your thoughts. You barely heard it over the thunder of the spin cycles and constant click of the tumbling dryers.

“Just a sec,” you called back, not looking over your shoulder as you made sure to dowse each and every stain you could see without enough peroxide to help pull out the stains. Satisfied with the slow rise of pinkish foam atop each stain, you turned and nearly startled in surprise to see him standing there.

He looked different -- he _was_ different. He didn’t seem so hulking and frightening anymore, his face pale and full of stubble. His dark hair was clean and pulled neatly away from his face. He seemed smaller somehow; his expression closed and guarded, but his eyes not anything close to the dark, frightening gaze you remembered. They were cautious, even worried.

You never knew they were blue.

“Can I help you, Sergeant Barnes?” you asked, trying to sound cheerful. You wiped your damp hands on your apron and offered the friendliest smile you could muster.

“Steve… Captain Rogers,” he said quietly. “He asked me to come down. Said there were a few things that didn’t come back in the laundry?”

You glanced over your shoulder, the pitiful pile of wet bloody t-shirts painfully apparent behind you. When you turned back, frowned.

“It wouldn’t be t-shirts, would it?” you asked. “We’ve had a… delay with those.”

The Sergeant shook his head. “No, uh, I think he said it was one of his gloves? And maybe a baseball cap?”

You closed your eyes and sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I am so sorry about this,” you told him, and turned to face the others, who had clustered together and were whispering back and forth. 

The had heard the stories about Sergeant Barnes; some of them had even been around to see the bruises on your throat, massive and dark and shaped like a hand.

“Who has been taking souvenirs again?” you demanded, hands on your hips. It was so hard to find good people to work at the Tower; even after drug screens and background checks, there were still those who looked squeaky clean on paper but turned out to be thieves and fame-seekers.

The other girls exchanged glances but said nothing.

“Look, I’m not asking again,” you said, getting angrier by the moment. It was hard enough for these people, Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers, the Sergeant standing a few feet behind you and the others that worked and lived in the Tower. It seemed that their lives weren’t completely their own anymore; they least you could do was provide a safe, welcoming home for them.

Where your staff wasn’t full of sticky-fingered little twits.

Finally two of the girls stepped forward, scurrying to the locker room to retrieve their stolen prizes. A leather glove, clearly battle-worn, probably accidentally mixed in with the t-shirts and underclothes the Captain wore beneath his tactical suit; a battered navy blue baseball cap, the bill bent into a well-worn shape.

You took both of the items with your lips pressed into a thin line, looking back and forth between the two girls, who seemed both embarrassed and fearful. You sighed again; they were young, and foolish, after all.

“Collect your things and go home,” you told them evenly. “You both are suspended for one week. I’m hedging my bets here. I think maybe you just got a little excited, and made a mistake. I don’t think it’s going to happen again. Am I right?”

They both nodded quickly and offered mumbled apologies before practically running for the locker room. Shaking your head, you turned back around and offered the two stolen items to the Sergeant.

“I’m really sorry,” you told him. “They’re good kids, I swear. They’re new on the line and I think they have a little bit of a hero-worship thing going on. I’ll straighten’em out.”

He nodded. “Steve’d be glad to hear that. I don’t think he wanted to get anyone in trouble.”

You smiled. “I’m sure he wouldn’t,” you agreed. “Is there anything else, Sergeant Barnes? I got the memo a couple weeks ago about changing your detergent to the unscented variety, is that working out better for you?”

He ducked his head, seemingly embarrassed, but nodded. “Yes, it is, thank you.”

Captain Rogers had sent the confidential memo; the Sergeant was going through some intensive therapy and was in the midst of a rediscovery process. He had been forced to live in so austere a manner that it had seemingly deadened his senses. His treatment was helping to wake those senses up again and the heady scents of laundry detergent and dryer sheets were just a bit too much, particularly when it came to his bedclothes.

You still doubled up on the fabric softener, an unscented variety you had specifically sourced for the purpose. The Sergeant may have needed to keep himself clear of overdone scents, but that didn’t mean he should sleep on harsh, starchy sheets. As far as you were concerned, he deserved all of the comfort in the world.

He turned to go and then paused, turning back to face you with a frown. He bit his lip, the Captain’s pilfered belongings held in the metallic hand that some months ago had been prepared to crush your throat. He seemed poised to speak so you gave a small smile, and you waited.

“I need to… I mean, I should...” he started. He was clearly uncomfortable, stumbling over his words, eyes cast down to the tiled floor. When he looked up, his blue eyes were pained. “I want to apologize,” he finally spit out. “For what I did to you.”

You held up your hands and shook your head. “No, you don’t need…” you started.

He said your name and you stopped, surprised he even knew it. “Please,” he said quietly, and you just nodded. You wouldn’t interrupt him again.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want to. I could… it was like I could see what I was doing? But I couldn’t stop,” he explained, twisting the Captain’s hat and glove in his hands as he spoke. “It wasn’t like that before. It was like I wasn’t even there, before. I could see what I was doing but I didn’t… I couldn’t…”

He dropped his eyes to the floor again and swallowed hard. “Part of my therapy is to talk about the things that he… that I… did. I didn’t want to hurt you. Please understand that.”

You reached out tentatively, placing a hand on his wrist -- the metal one, the cybernetic arm that had frightened you so much, seemingly eons ago.

“I know you didn’t, Sergeant,” you told him slowly. “It was just an accident. A mistake. There’s nothing to forgive, okay?”

When the Sergeant met your eyes again, he had a timid smile on his face. “Okay,” he agreed.

 

You first met Bucky Barnes on a chilly October night. It wasn’t even that cold outside -- normal for the time of year, the autumn reaching out to startle New York with a cold snap -- but on the partition of the 85th floor that was shared by Steve and Bucky, it may as well have been a sauna. You were management now; you spent most of your nights dealing with paperwork and payroll for the housekeeping staff, and handling any small crises that managed to arise. But a nasty little flu bug had swept through your crew and you were four bodies short that night. You weren’t about to put any more work on the ones who managed to show up, so when it became clear another pair of hands was needed, you changed out of your blouse and skirt and into the gym clothes you kept in your office and grabbed a cleaning caddy to get to work. It was earlier in the evening than you’d usually send out cleaning staff, but the team was out on a mission and it gave you leave to get things done quicker.

Chilly outside or not, you knew it would be near uncomfortably warm on Steve and Bucky’s floor. Both seemed to revile the cold, and reasonably so, given what you knew of their backgrounds, so as soon as the temperature began to drop outside, the thermostat began to rise in their quarters. That worked out well enough for you; you hadn’t actually made it to the gym for months, so the spare clothes you had on hand were a tank top and pair of shorts. At least you wouldn’t sweat to death while you scrubbed down.

You went first to the kitchen; even though it had been quite a while since you’d done a typical housekeeping shift, old habits died hard and you wanted to start in the kitchen. As you expected, there were a few dishes waiting in the sink, though not nearly enough to run the dishwasher. You bent down to retrieve search beneath the sink for a bottle of dishwashing liquid, not noticing that you were no longer alone.

“Well would you look at that,” a voice spoke from behind you, no small amount of amusement in the tone. “Now that’s a sight I don’t mind coming home to.”

You heard Steve laugh, even as he tried to cover it. “Jesus, Bucky,” he said.

You straightened, hands on your hips as you turned to survey the two super-soldiers who you were quite certain had just been ogling your ass. 

“Something I can help you with, gentleman?” you asked, trying not to smile. If nothing else, it was flattering as all get out.

Bucky bit his lip and cocked his head to the side, giving you a clear once-over. “You have no idea how much you’ve already helped me out tonight, doll,” he told you with a pronounced wink.

Steve was reached out and cuffed the back of his head. “Can’t take you anywhere,” he grumbled, though it was clear he still found the whole thing somewhat amusing. You couldn’t blame him; the teasing, lightness to Bucky’s attitude was so far and away from the broken man you had encountered in the laundry all those months ago, it was almost startling.

You’d heard that he had changed, but you hadn’t seen it yourself until that night. Most nights saw you cooped up in the office, rarely heading out onto the residential floors unless there was an emergency that needed handling. Some of the very same people who had stood huddled together in fear when the quiet, almost timid Sergeant had approached you in the laundry now giggled over the handsome Bucky Barnes.

Honestly, it wasn’t hard to see the appeal.

He’d cut his hair. It wasn’t the clipped, old-fashioned style you’d seen in photos from his days in the War, the ones that had been played over and over again on the news alongside grainy stills of him as the so-called Winter Soldier, but the back and sides were short and neat, with his hair a little longer on the top. Even as you looked at it, you felt your fingers just itching to run through it. His eyes were a light and dancing blue, full of good humor and just a twinkle of mischief. 

He’d clearly had some time in the sun, his complexion healthy and tan, even on an autumn day; the dark circles under his eyes that had seemingly plagued him for months had all but disappeared. He was still stubbled but it didn’t bear the air of neglect, rather an artful choice, like he knew how sexy it made him look.

Given the smirking curl to his perfect lips, he definitely knew -- and he knew you had noticed it, too.

You cleared your throat. “I’m sorry Captain, Sergeant… We thought you weren’t going to be back until morning, so I deployed housekeeping staff as usual.”

Steve shook his head, saying your name with a smile. “How many times do I have to ask you to call me Steve?” he told you. 

“You don’t have to apologize for doing your job either,” Bucky piped up. He took a step towards you, voice dropping barely a note, just enough for him to know you’d notice it. “And c’mon, call me Bucky. I sure as hell ain’t in the army anymore.”

Steve rolled his shoulders and walked to the fridge, opening the door with a studious look on his face. “We got in little earlier than expected,” he advised, poking around a few takeout containers and stacks of tupperware. “You just do what you gotta do, we’ll try not to be a bother.”

You bent to retrieve your handheld radio from where it was clipped on your caddy, blushing profusely when Bucky let out a low whistle. Steve, Captain America, paragon of virtue, the ultimate gentleman, seemed to find the whole damn thing hilarious and was smirking through a half-snort, half-laugh at your reaction. He emerged from the fridge with an armload of plastic containers and a six-pack of beer, dropping them both on the kitchen table and taking a seat beside his friend.

You got the distinct impression that these two together definitely spelled T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

“All housekeeping staff, please be advised that Tower residents had returned ahead of schedule,” you said over the radio, straining to sound professional as Bucky tilted in his chair at the table, eyes dancing with amusement and gaze still focused on you. “Finish whatever you’re doing and vacate the private floors. We’ll reconvene tomorrow night on a regular schedule.”

A series of affirmative replies -- several ‘got it’s and a few ‘copy that’s, along with one ‘yes ma’am’ -- came back over the radio and you scooped up your caddy from the floor, careful to turn so you face the table rather than had your back to it.

“Sweetheart, believe me, it’s a great view either way,” Bucky teased as you straightened.

“I thought you old guys were supposed to have manners?” you replied, trying not to smile. There was a certain charm to his brazen flirtation, words and glances that from most men would seem sleazy somehow coming off as funny more than anything. You knew somehow that Bucky was just playing -- he was teasing, not leering, and should you have called him out, you were all but certain he’d stop and apologize.

It just happened that you didn’t really want him to stop.

“Should have seen me when I first started,” you countered with a grin. “I used to dance around like a fool, headphones in my ears, when I was working on the residential floors.”

Steve popped the cap on a bottle of beer and chuckled. “I did see that, a few times,” he told you with a smile. “Just didn’t want to embarrass you, so I didn’t say anything.”

“See that?” Bucky told you, shaking his head. “Everyone thinks this punk’s the perfect gentleman but there you have it, watchin’ pretty girls shake it up and down the hall and never even tellin’em he’s there.”

You laughed. “I’ll leave you guys to it…” you said, heading for the door. “I’ll send someone up to grab the laundry in the morning and we’ll get back to the regular housekeeping routine tomorrow.”

“Hey now,” Bucky said quickly, reaching out to take your arm in his hand. It was cool against your skin, smooth dark metal that stayed cold to the touch in spite of the heat of the room. “Don’t go rushin’ off on our account.”

You couldn’t help but glance down at the metallic hand lightly gripping your arm. It wasn’t tight and it didn’t hurt; it called to mind your first meeting with this man -- with who this man had once been, the broken creature that had to learn to be human again -- in the hallway just outside of the kitchen. It wasn’t the same hand anymore; he had a new prosthetic, designed by Tony Stark himself, and it was interesting to see the difference.

You realized too late that he took your staring as something else entirely, clearly remembering your first encounter so long ago.

Bucky huffed out your name and then said “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think, I…” He trailed off when you reached over with your free hand, running your fingertips over his cybernetic knuckles.

“This one’s a lot smoother,” you mused quietly. You glanced up at him, smiling as reassuringly you as you could when confronted with the surprise on his face. “Can you feel that?” you asked. “My hand, I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah I can,” Bucky agreed, an unnamed emotion making his voice gruff. “Stark may be a pain in the ass but the man knows what he’s doing. The old one, I couldn’t feel much but pressure but now… heat, touch, I can feel it all.”

Not thinking, you ran your fingertips up the back of his hand to his wrist; Bucky grinned at you.

Steve cleared his throat. “Yeah I think I’ll go see if there’s a game on,” he said quickly, grabbing his beer and an extra bottle for good measure, along with what looked to be a tupperware container of fried chicken. He exited quickly and you heard the open and close of a door somewhere down the hall, presumably his bedroom.

“Kid always did have a good eye for when to make himself scarce,” Bucky told you, the smile on his face bright and flirty. “Why don’t you have a seat, now that you’re free for the evening? Nothin’ better than havin’ a beer with a gorgeous girl at my side.”

 

You first met James on a frigid winter night, in that do-nothing week between Christmas and New Year’s. 

You’d called him Bucky from the moment the invitation had been made but this was something different; in the quiet of his bedroom, in the sacred space shared only between the two of you, he liked it when you called him by his given name. No one else did, not ever. It was always ‘Bucky’ or ‘Buck’ or occasionally just ‘Barnes’, but when he took you to his bed, stripped down and the both of you completely bare to touch and emotion, you could just feel it in the air, the situation calling for something different, more intimate.

You said it in a whisper the first time, marveling in the way he groaned and shuddered to hear it, and his sweet name passed over your lips time and again that night, and for many, many nights to follow. 

 

One late summer night when the air conditioner was set low, keeping it comfortable but not too cool on the 85th floor, and you lay cuddled up against his chest, blankets and sheets kicked to the foot of the bed, your James looked down at you and smiled.

“You know somethin’, doll?” he said, wild wonder and soft contentment mingling in his gaze. “I never thought you’d be able to stand the sight of me again. Now look at us.”

You smiled. “So much for first impressions.”


End file.
